


1984

by Naraht



Category: Return to Night - Mary Renault
Genre: Aging, F/M, Illness, decades later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another hospital bedside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1984

Pneumonia. A grave matter when the patient was eighty and had smoked for the better part of sixty years; graver still when this was the third recurrence in fifteen months. 

So said the patient.

Hilary lay in a ward of the hospital where she had worked until her retirement, struggling to breathe. Julian sat by the bed holding her hand. Or was she holding his? Another bedside decades earlier seemed inextricable from this one, its memory underlying everything between them.

"You can't be," said Julian.

"Of course I can." Hilary's voice was husky and broken, muffled by the oxygen mask, but held its familiar note of wry, amused assurance. "One does. Sooner or later."

 _I need you_ , he wanted to say. _I can't live without you_. But he was certain she had known this from the moment they met.

He bowed his head. Hilary, too weak to reach up and stroke his hair, squeezed his hand in hers.

"My boy," she said.

Julian, who would be seventy before the year was out, began to weep.


End file.
